


each day as it comes

by MermaidMarie



Series: Timeline 9 [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Timeline 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22312096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMarie/pseuds/MermaidMarie
Summary: In which Alice brings her brother back. (following the events of What You Know Now)
Relationships: Alice Quinn & Charlie Quinn, Kady Orloff-Diaz/Alice Quinn
Series: Timeline 9 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606006
Comments: 12
Kudos: 122





	1. The First Step

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't going to be very long, I just didn't really get a chance to give this plot thread attention in What You Know Now, and I wanted to.

_The world was limitless. He was limitless. He could go anywhere, do anything. Be anything. It was interesting, the see the world this way—_

_He was barely aware of the way time passed. It was irrelevant to him. What did he care about the passage of time? What did he care about the living and breathing and dying of the creatures that were shackled to the world, to time?_

_He knew, distantly, who he was. Or rather, who he’d once been. He didn’t feel any connection to that life anymore. Funny how that works._

_It was, truly and genuinely, hysterically funny to him. He’d once cared so much about such inconsequential things—he’d cared so much he’d nearly destroyed himself._

_Instead, he was here. Freed from the bindings of time and of connection and of breathing._

_He had worlds of opportunities at his fingers. And he explored corners of existence that no one else had touched. He felt—as much as he could feel at all—a sort of detached pride in who he’d become and what he’d learned._

_He was floating in the spaces between matter. He was no longer a part of whatever pain existed in humanity._

_It was a relief._

_Or, at least, he assumed it was a relief. What did he care?_

_None of that mattered to him anymore. All that mattered was this endlessness he had access to._

_All that mattered was the blue fire that burned along his being, that made his irises glow through the darkness._

_He couldn’t remember what it felt like to care about anything else._

“So, are we ready then?”

What a question that was. Alice paced the length of the room. _Ready._ No, she wasn’t ready. After all this time, after all this preparation, Alice wasn’t ready _at all_. She was petrified. She clutched the locket like her life depended on it. It had been getting heavier around her neck as they got closer, like Charlie’s soul could sense what was happening.

She wondered if he was scared, too. 

Charlie had been her best friend for most of her life. Her _only_ friend for a lot of it. His disappearance, his _death,_ it had been quite possibly the most devastating thing to happen to her. She loved Charlie—how was she supposed to go on without him?

The reason she was _here_ was that she’d been trying to save him, all this time.

But there was everything that Q had said—

And everything he’d described—

Everything he’d warned—

And how _would_ she feel, if it had been her, if she’d turned into a niffin, if she was pulled back into the physical world after—

She told Quentin that, as she was now, she’d want to come back. She’d want to be human again. But was that even true? Could she say, with complete certainty, that this was what she would want for herself?

She just wished she could ask Charlie what she should do. She wanted him to smile at her, to guide her. She wanted him to tease her for overthinking. She wanted him to talk her down, she wanted him to let her ramble at him. She wanted him to make everything make _sense_ again.

Just the past few days had been _so much._ There’d been too much to grapple with, too many enormous problems to solve. World-altering, life-or-death problems. Issues and puzzles and crises that affected entire planets.

But this one, it was just hers. She was the one asking to do this.

Was she even really doing this for Charlie?

She wanted to be able to say she was doing it for Charlie.

Kady caught her wrist as she tried to pace past her.

“Quinn,” Kady said. “Breathe.”

Alice resisted the urge to make a snippy remark back and just followed Kady’s breath. She was agitated; she was frustrated. Kady’s calm was soothing, if a little unnerving. How anyone in the _world_ could be calm was kind of beyond Alice’s understanding at that moment, let alone how anyone in that _room_ could be. It was all a little much.

Her anxiety, her panic, it seemed to fill the space and mold to its shape like liquid.

“We don’t have to do this right now,” Quentin said, like an offering. “We can take a minute, grab some food, something.”

Alice turned to him sharply. “What, are you trying to get out of it?”

She bit the inside of her lip, hearing her own voice. How sharp she was being. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t genuinely believe that Quentin was trying to avoid helping. She knew he’d agreed to it, she knew he was going to come through.

She trusted Quentin. She didn’t _mean_ to accuse him—

She opened her mouth, started to try to apologize, but Quentin didn’t look fazed.

“This is going to take a lot of focus and energy,” he said evenly. “If you need some time to calm down, I get it. We have everything set up here, we can come back to it.”

“Some food might be good,” Kady suggested mildly.

So _maybe_ Alice hadn’t eaten yet that day. The nerves were making her nauseous. She couldn’t really imagine eating.

Alice crossed her arms over her chest. Uncrossed them. Crossed them again.

“I guess we could get food,” she said, trying to sound like she didn’t feel like she was eleven and scared and overwhelmed.

“I’ve got an idea,” Quentin said.

Alice glanced at Kady, who just shrugged.

It felt a little strange to leave the room—like if they didn’t keep an eye on it, something would go wrong, everything would fall apart.

_God, fuck, what if something went wrong?_

Kady squeezed her hand lightly as they left the room, left the Cottage.

They followed Quentin, across campus, through the portal by the library and into the city.

Alice was never big on cities, as a whole. Too much noise, too many people. She always felt out of place. As they walked, she kept inching closer to Kady, who seemed completely at ease. Alice was already wound up tight from the anxiety of today; the city was not helping.

They walked in silence for a couple blocks. Alice felt antsy about everything, about the sound of her shoes on the sidewalk, the feel of the wind in her hair. Everything was too much.

She was moments from asking Quentin where they were going when he led them into a little diner.

It wasn’t particularly crowded—it seemed like the lunch rush had ended. They got seated in a booth in the far corner.

Quentin asked the waitress for a plate of bacon right away.

The waitress raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t question it.

Alice was confused, and a little startled—she had been pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to stomach _anything,_ that this whole thing was a waste of time, until Quentin said that.

She stared at him.

“How did you know—” Alice started, before Quentin looked up and met her eyes. “Right. Right. Of course.”

Quentin offered a semi-sheepish smile. “Yeah. Look, um. This was how I—how I _started_ to bring Alice 40 back. Becoming a niffin, you know, it did something to her. She had to learn how to be human again.” He gestured vaguely.

_How to be human again._

How the hell was Alice supposed to help Charlie with that?

She barely knew how to be human herself.

“So… You got her bacon,” Kady said flatly.

Q shrugged. “It’s about the little things. Tangible, real things that you can show. Things like—sensory things. Taste. Touch. All that. We didn’t… talk much, about what being a niffin was like. But I get the idea you can’t… _feel_ things. Not in the same way.”

Alice considered that, running her finger down the condensation on the water glass the waitress had set in front of her. She could _imagine_ it, at least. The idea of being so separate from the human experience that you stop feeling. She’d sort of dreamt of that before, when existing was too messy and complicated and painful. She wondered about Alice 40—about whether that experience made her more or less grateful for the life she was given.

“He’ll hate me,” Alice said softly.

“Maybe,” Quentin said, and she sort of loved him for not lying. “But he won’t be himself for a while.”

Kady touched Alice’s arm, squeezing lightly. “We’ll figure it out, though.”

“You know your brother,” Quentin said. “I mean, it won’t be easy. But I think you’ll know what he’ll need. Favorite foods, favorite songs. It’s not impossible.”

Alice glanced at Kady, managing the barest hint of a smile. “We’re pretty good with not impossible. Those are odds we can work with.”

“Damn straight,” Kady said, throwing an arm over Alice’s shoulders and kissing her cheek.

The waitress brought out the plate of bacon. Kady ordered some waffles and Quentin had black coffee.

Alice found herself feeling better as she ate. Feeling more human, maybe. Her fragile optimism was building up in her chest. She was getting steadier, with Kady and Quentin there, chatting with each other about nothing as Alice kept flicking her gaze out the window on the other side of the diner.

Their voices soothed her. The taste of the bacon made her feel warmer. She watched the people passing on the sidewalk outside. She’d never really known how she felt about being a Magician. She’d never really thought about how she felt about being human.

But she did, a little bit, start believing that Charlie would want to come back just as much as she wanted him to.

Back at the Cottage, Alice finally unclasped her locket. She took a breath, holding it close to her heart for a moment. Then she placed it gently in the center of the floor in the cage. It hurt her, a little bit, to let it go. Quentin had warned that he didn’t know what the spell would do to it.

Her locket, the necklace Charlie had given her. She loved it.

Letting go of it, in a way, felt like letting herself believe that this would work. Because she wasn’t _afraid_ to lose the locket. She knew it was going to be worth it, whatever happened.

“Ready?” Quentin asked, like he had earlier that same day.

This time, Alice gave a curt nod, pursing her lips. Clenching her jaw. Straightening her spine.

“Then let’s do this,” he said.

The first thing to do was summon niffin-Charlie.

Alice stepped forward, her hands shaking nervously.

And she began to sing, her voice strained and off-key.

Magic crackled in the air, and it felt more menacing than Alice had ever experienced. There was a flash of blue fire—blindingly bright. She squinted her eyes against the light, and she saw him.

_Charlie._

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but her heart felt like it was collapsing in on itself. It was her _brother,_ her best friend—

And he didn’t look anything like himself.

The magic went by in a blur—Alice knew that her hands went through the tuts, that she said the words she needed to. She knew that she did her part of the spell, but if she tried to pick out a moment, tried to see clearly, it was all a mess in her mind.

It was too much to sort through.

Here are the flashes of images she saw:

Kady’s reassuring glance.

Fire, blue fire, wrapping around the cage.

Quentin stepping forward.

The bars on the cage shivering as they held.

Charlie’s Shade, the little boy he used to be—

Mouthing _thank you—_

Smiling at Alice, almost sadly, like he knew he’d be too far underneath the niffin to express his gratitude again—

There was noise—their voices, the crackling in the air, Alice thought there might’ve been screaming.

Until—

All at once, everything went still.

And there he was.

And Alice couldn’t breathe.

Quentin opened the door and carefully draped the blanket they’d had ready over Charlie’s shoulders.

He was hunched on the floor, curled in on himself, breathing hard and fast. He looked around the room furtively, clutching at the blanket and shivering. His gaze landed on Alice, and it was all she could do to not run away at the look in his eyes.

It was anger, it was fear, it was confusion.

But after a moment, Alice, amazingly, felt lighter. She found herself feeling as though she was on the brink of laughing.

Because, whatever else was in his gaze, it wasn’t hatred.

That was a start.


	2. Small Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing about siblings makes me Very Emotional, it turns out.  
> Also, I don't remember how much we canonically know about Charlie, but like. I'm not gonna check. Just for the record.

_When Alice was in middle school, Charlie learned how to braid hair for her._

_He’d overheard when Alice asked their mom if she’d help do her hair for the first day of school. Their mom had kind of rolled her eyes and brushed Alice off, some half-hearted excuse about being too busy._

_She wasn’t too busy. Charlie knew that. All she was doing was drinking wine in the kitchen, being idle and bored and self-indulgent. Charlie had seen her earlier just magically rearranging the furniture in the guest room for no discernible reason._

_It was like this often. Their mom had plenty of time to arbitrarily redecorate, but somehow, she never had any time for Alice._

_Charlie wasn’t sure what it was, really. When he was in middle school, she’d taken him to ice cream the day before the first day of school and asked him all about what he was excited about and what he was nervous about. She’s pick him up and ask him how it went. It was like Stephanie had decided to only be a mom to Charlie._

_He felt…_

_Strangely guilty about it. Like he was using up any limited affection that Stephanie had. It wasn’t like she was mom of the year for him, either, but at least she smiled when he said hi to her, instead of scowling and turning away. At least it seemed like she tried with, even if it was in small, infrequent ways. With Alice, at best, Stephanie seemed to treat her as an inconvenience._

_It hurt Charlie to see, but he couldn’t even imagine how it made Alice feel._

_Charlie regretted, not for the first time, the age difference between him and his sister. Middle school wasn’t exactly something he was eager to repeat, but he felt bad that he wouldn’t be able to be there with her._

_But there were some things he could do._

_Like he could pull Alice into his room, watch YouTube tutorials with her, let her pick her favorite. He could give it a first try, and when that braid was sloppy and crooked, he could let it out and redo it. Trial and error. Alice was giggling as he struggled to get his fingers to do the little graceful moves that the girl in the video’s hands could do._

_“You could just use magic,” Alice said after the third try._

_Charlie shook his head. This was something else he could do for her._

_“We can’t let magic solve all our problems,” Charlie said. “Sometimes, we have to do things ourselves, right?”_

_He didn’t add “so that we don’t end up like Mom and Dad” but the way Alice got quiet, it seemed she heard it anyway._

Charlie didn’t speak. That was the first thing.

He stared sullenly at the wall, with dark, empty eyes. Alice sat next to him, not sure what to do. She thought about what Quentin had told her, about sensory memories, tangible things. She rolled a clear marble in her hand, unsure.

“Do you remember the first time you made me one of those glass horses?” Alice said softly.

Charlie didn’t show any sign that he heard her at all. She stifled a sigh.

She imagined Quentin must’ve handled this much better than her. She was never good at being patient or gentle. She wanted things to have clear-cut solutions. Fast ones. She didn’t want to dwell in the complications of coaxing emotions. It was hard, waiting like this. Hoping through the uncertainty that things _would_ get better.

She was pretty sure, if the roles were reversed, Charlie would be better at it, too. Charlie would know what to do.

Alice was, truly and honestly, beyond out of her depth with this one.

“I don’t actually remember the very first time,” Alice said to him, opening her palm to study the marble. “It was just one of those things that… I just remember you doing it whenever I was sad. It was the first spell I ever learned to do, because you taught me.”

She glanced at him. Nothing.

“But I don’t remember the first time I saw you do it. It was one of those… fuzzy memories. A constant of childhood. I don’t know.” Alice stared at her lap. The room felt cold and quiet.

She felt alone.

She wondered if he could even really hear her.

Would it always be like this?

What if Alice 40 had been an anomaly? What if becoming a niffin just wasn’t something you could recover from?

What if Alice had gotten this far, had made it to this point, only to learn that her brother really was gone?

“You were always there for me,” she continued. If she just kept talking, maybe… “I didn’t realize that I didn’t remember the first time you made me a glass horse until after you…”

Her voice cracked. Really obviously broke. She closed her mouth fast and clenched her jaw.

Charlie didn’t even look over at her.

When they were kids, she didn’t cry very often. But when she did, he was _always_ fawning over her, in his own, weird, clumsy way. It used to drive her crazy, because she just wanted to stop crying, and all of his worry only made her cry harder. She used to lock herself in the bathroom to avoid his coddling. He’d sit on the other side of the door.

Sometimes, he’d sing to her.

Right about now, she’d kill to just have him look at her, with those concerned eyes. He’d touch her shoulder, hesitantly, because neither of them had ever been sure how the comfort of touch was supposed to work. Not with _their_ parents. And then he’d ask—stilted, awkward, anxious—if she was okay.

She used to always snap at him when he asked her if she was okay.

God, she’d missed him.

She glanced at him again.

She _still_ missed him.

Slowly, carefully, she made a glass horse.

Kady’s life was so fucking weird.

She loved being at Brakebills. She was genuinely happy to be able to forget about Marina, forget about her mom, forget about Fillory, and just focus on school. She’d never been a great student, but this mattered to her.

Meanwhile, she was also covering for her girlfriend to the professors, bringing home all the classwork and making sure Alice got it done enough to get by. It was a good thing that Alice was naturally pretty brilliant, and a good thing that most of the professors barely seemed to notice. Kady was doing her best to keep everything on track.

Just because the rest of their friends dropped out didn’t mean they had to.

Kady also realized, pretty quickly, that it would be better if she stayed out of the way while Alice was dealing with Charlie. Kady didn’t know Charlie, she didn’t know anything beyond the bits and pieces that Alice had told her. She figured this was one of those things that she wouldn’t be able to directly help with.

So instead, she did this.

She went to class, brought back the notes and the work. She made Alice take breaks from the _clearly_ emotionally draining work of trying to coax her brother back by arguing that it was important they keep up with schoolwork. Alice, at least, seemed to take some comfort in the guided breaks.

Kady was pretty sure that if she didn’t drag Alice in the room, she’d just stay there until something changed. Until Charlie was back to normal, or until Alice couldn’t take another moment without breaking down.

So yeah, Kady cared about school. It was also a pretty welcome excuse to get Alice to eat and rest and laugh a little.

Kady had never been much of a caretaker type, especially considering how much she’d always had to manage her mom. But she found she didn’t mind so much when it was Alice she was trying to take care of. It didn’t feel like a chore if it was Alice.

So she brought food home. She cooked. She offered whatever softness and comfort she could manage.

One day, after Kady had dragged Alice into her bedroom for food and homework, Alice glanced at her.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Yeah?” Kady replied. She shrugged and smiled a little, unrepentant. “Do you mind?”

Alice’s lips twitched up in what could almost be a smile. “No,” she replied.

Kady just kissed her cheek and went back to half-studying.

It was a few minutes later when Alice reached over and laced their fingers together.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice quiet and bare.

Kady felt a tugging in her heart.

“Whatever you need, Quinn. I’m here.”

She read to him, too.

Alice had never loved the Fillory books the way some people had—like Quentin, like Margo, like Julia. But Charlie did.

The only reason Alice ever really knew about the Fillory books at all was that Charlie had read them to her. He’d loved the books. Alice wouldn’t have read them on her own, but Charlie made a whole thing of it. It was only a brief period of their childhood—about a month or two, where Charlie was reading about a book a week to her, in the evenings before bed.

Alice couldn’t even remember, really, if they’d ever finished the last book together.

Charlie had outgrown the books relatively fast, and Alice never liked them enough on her own to take a real interest. She’d really only enjoyed the stories because it was Charlie reading them to her.

The glass horses weren’t getting much of a response, so she tried this.

Charlie didn’t seem to hear her, but at least it kept her attention enough that she didn’t glance at his cold eyes every few minutes.

She’d forgotten so much of what had happened in the books. She paused reading every once in a while to tell Charlie bout what had happened, where she’d gone, what she and her friends had done.

“You know I’m friends with the kings and queens now?” she told him. “The High King is a girl. I would’ve _loved_ that as a kid.”

He didn’t answer, but she could’ve _sworn_ she saw a hint of some curiosity in his eyes.

“I watched the ceremony where they got their crowns,” she said, “I was there.”

As Ember and Umber came up, she had to pause there, too, to tell him everything about all of _that._

“Martin will be a better god than they ever were,” she said. “He really cares about the place. He’ll make it safe.”

She hoped, in some way, that sharing the adventures she’d been having with him would give him a piece of the part of her life he’d missed. He’d missed a lot, it turned out.

“I never would’ve ended up in Fillory if it weren’t for you,” she admitted at some point. “Everything I was doing, it was to get here. I just wanted to save you. I came to Brakebills to find out what happened.”

She risked reaching over and squeezing his hand.

He didn’t react.

“I missed you so much, Charlie.”

Briefly, barely, his hand twitched under hers.

Kady was always the one who was getting food for them, seeing as Alice was preoccupied. She always asked if Alice wanted anything in particular, and Alice had always said no, or given some vague noncommittal answer. Kady got the impression that if she wasn’t there to bring the food home, Alice might’ve forgotten to eat entirely.

One day, Alice finally did have a request.

It was, frankly, a little insane, the list Alice gave her.

Kady had just raised an eyebrow where she read it.

“My teeth hurt just looking at this list,” she said. The number of sugary things was _astounding._ Gummy worms, peanut butter cups, marshmallows. It was like the grocery list of an eight-year-old testing her luck with the new babysitter.

Alice shrugged. “Quentin said sensory things, right?”

Kady shot her a teasing glance. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s _your_ brother.”

Alice rolled her eyes, but she was smiling a little, the corners of her lips turned up in that cute way that made it clear she was trying to hide it. “Just because _you_ can drink whiskey and black coffee like it actually _tastes_ good—”

“Hey, I’m not judging,” Kady said. She leaned forward and kissed Alice’s cheek, a stab of tenderness in her heart for this amazing, ridiculous person she was so lucky to know. “I _love_ your sweet tooth.”

Alice immediately went pink in the cheeks. Kady grinned.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. “Guess I’ll just go to the candy store.”

“Wait, one other thing,” Alice said, trying to sound all-business despite the blush. “When you get back, will you help me make cookies, too? Snickerdoodles. They were his favorite. We used to make them when our parents went out of town.”

Kady brushed her knuckles gently against Alice’s cheek. “I’d love to.”

And maybe, a little bit, she was testing the waters to see how many times she could say the word _love_ to Alice before finally letting herself say the words that had been living in her mouth for a while now.

Knowing that this girl was his sister and _feeling_ it were two different things.

Charlie Quinn knew who he was. He knew _what_ he was. What he’d been.

He knew that Alice was his little sister, the very same girl whose hair he braided, the girl who was afraid of the basement, the girl who cried when she saw dead animals on the side of the road.

He knew that when Alice had been a little girl, she’d watched a movie about a girl and a horse, and he knew that when the horse died at the end, Alice had been inconsolable for hours. He couldn’t remember the movie, but he remembered the day. He remembered because it was the day he flipped through his father’s books to find a simple spell to cheer her up.

That was the first time he’d made her one of those little glass horses. He remembered.

But he was also numb, and angry, and confused. He couldn’t figure out how to describe the agony of existence. His shoulders hurt and his chest ached. His mind moved slowly, sluggishly, no matter how hard he tried to chase the understanding he’d had.

He’d seen the world. Corners and realms and monsters, he’d explored so many things with leisure, thinking he’d have the time to see everything there was.

Until he’d gotten unceremoniously crammed back into this fragile physical form.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with any of that.

As Alice talked, day after day, he felt agitated.

Her voice was deeply familiar, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that small, quiet part of him that remembered he loved her. He just wanted to fade back into blue fire so he could be free again.

He knew that Alice wanted _something_ from him. He sort of, in a way, knew what it was.

He didn’t care. He couldn’t. Too much was overwhelming his mind. He couldn’t narrow down what to focus on. It was like a lightning storm, flashes of light blinding him to anything that might’ve mattered. There were the pieces of his life before, the scattered bits of human memories, and there were the harsh fire-memories of what it was like to move through the world as a niffin.

They were such conflicting concepts in his mind that he wanted to shut down.

He would only eat the food that she brought him after she left. And he’d only eat enough of it to quell the pain in his stomach, the _inconvenience_ of being a physical being. He resented the food he needed to eat, the water he needed to drink, the oxygen he needed to breathe.

He resented all of it. He was resigned to scowl in the corner indefinitely, resigned to let himself wither and fade until he could be a specter again.

Until…

It wasn’t anything big. It was, really, very small.

Alice began singing.

And when Charlie heard those first few words, however shaky they were, his heart started beating faster.

The words and the melody, they elicited that feeling of affection that Charlie had been burying. All the layers of anger and resentment and frustration were just scattered in an instant. It was like hearing music for the first time, even if it was off key, even if she stumbled on the second verse like she didn’t remember every word.

Alice sang nervously, like she was on a tightrope.

Charlie could feel tears clinging to his eyelashes and he shivered. It was familiar and unfamiliar at once, this strange pulling at who he used to be.

When the song ended, the tears finally fell.

Alice didn’t seem to notice what had happened. She sighed a little, getting to her feet without looking at him.

But Charlie couldn’t stand it. He felt like himself for a moment.

“Sing it again?” he said. His throat felt raw and rusty, weak from how he’d bit his tongue.

Alice stopped in her tracks, letting out a trembling breath.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at him.

She just sat back down beside him, and she sang the song again.

Charlie felt her voice echoing through his memories.

It was like coming home.


	3. Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.

_“I can’t believe I’m gonna have to live here without you,” Alice sighed, leaning against the counter._

_“I’ll be back every break,” Charlie replied. “You know that.”_

_He smiled, a little awkwardly. It was weird. It was hard. He was really excited to go to Brakebills. He wanted to learn magic, beyond what his parents had taught them, beyond what they’d taught themselves._

_If he was being honest, he couldn’t wait to leave._

_But anytime Alice looked at him, he felt a twinge of guilt._

_It had always been the two of them. It felt endlessly strange that he would be leaving her behind. Honestly, Charlie wasn’t sure which one of them would handle it worse. He couldn’t really think about it too long without getting anxious._

_Alice was perfectly smart and capable. He knew she didn’t_ need _him, but…_

_He kind of needed to feel like she did sometimes._

_“You should come visit, too,” he offered._

_Alice raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that even allowed at Brakebills?”_

_He shrugged a shoulder. “Who cares?”_

_She smiled a little, looking at least a bit brighter as she seemed to consider the idea. “Y’know, I’d like that, I think.”_

_“It’d be great,” Charlie promised._

_It would give them something to look forward to, at least. Something to keep the bitterness of the goodbye at bay._

_Charlie never did get the chance to show Alice around the Brakebills campus the way he’d wanted to. He never even got the chance to come home for a holiday and tell Alice about the classes, about his friends, about the new magic._

_He’d told himself that it was silly, how much it hurt to leave. That it was just school, it wasn’t like they’d never see each other again._

_As the blue fire consumed him, he thought about when he left for Brakebills. He thought about the promise he was breaking. He thought about how he should’ve hugged Alice tighter before walking away._

“Hey, hey, hey,” Kady said, gently, brushing Alice’s hair back. “You’re okay, babe. It’s okay.”

Alice was breathing unevenly, tears streaming down her face. She was shaking all over. She looked like she might pass out, like she could barely hold herself up. Kady slowly led her over to the bed, sitting them both down. She wrapped an arm over Alice’s shoulder.

Alice, immediately, buried her face in the side of Kady’s neck and began to sob quietly.

Maybe it was how quiet Alice’s meltdown was, maybe it was how calm Alice had been mere moments before, but Kady’s heart was pounding.

“I’m here, I’m here, it’s okay,” Kady murmured. She kissed Alice’s forehead. “Okay?”

“I thought—” Alice said, breathless and broken through the tears. “I thought he was getting _better,_ I thought—”

She broke off, bringing a hand up to her mouth as she pressed harder into Kady’s side.

Kady stroked Alice’s hair and held her tighter. “He _is_ getting better,” she said.

“Did you _hear_ him—” Alice said, her sobs getting more ragged. “He hates me, he’s not—”

“He doesn’t hate you, I promise,” Kady said gently. “He’s recovering. It’s hard. He’s saying things he doesn’t mean.”

“I thought it’d be…”

“Easier?” Kady sighed. “I know, Quinn. I’m sorry.”

Alice let out a shaky breath.

“One day at a time,” Kady said. “It’ll _get_ easier. It’ll get better.”

And she believed it.

Alice almost understood why some other version of her might’ve fallen for Quentin when he stopped by to drop off a deck of cards.

It was such a simple gesture—Alice didn’t even think anything of it, really.

 _Something to try with Charlie,_ Quentin had said with a shrug.

It was nice, to have that kind simplicity.

She hadn’t thought much of it. Until she brought the deck into Charlie’s room, barely really thinking about it. Not lingering on the idea too much. She’d try anything at this point, and she might as well, right? Anything human. Anything small.

She kept reminding herself that’s what it was about—those small human things that would draw out what Charlie had forgotten about. Who he’d forgotten how to be. Her brother was _there;_ he was just…

Difficult to find. Some days, he was more niffin than others, a cruel blue glint in his eyes. She swore his eyes hadn’t been that blue before. She was afraid they’d always look like this.

She brought the cards in, setting them down with Charlie’s tray of food, setting them down with a small glass horse.

Charlie stared at the cards, taking a moment before he reached out tentatively, picking them up with a care that Alice remembered.

“Cards?” he said. His voice was still hoarse.

“Yeah,” she said. “Quentin brought them by. Remember Quentin?”

Charlie’s jaw clenched. Quentin had stuck around for a few days, so Charlie had met him, sort of. Maybe it was the wrong move, bringing him up. Charlie didn’t have the most positive associations with him.

“Anyway, yeah,” Alice said quickly. “Cards.”

Charlie began to shuffle them. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was afraid to bend them.

“We used to play poker,” Charlie said quietly.

Alice blinked. Yeah, she hadn’t even thought about it, but—

“On vacation, when our parents dragged us along,” Charlie continued. Alice was holding her breath. “We’d—we’d play poker to pass the time. We bet with candy. We were always arguing about what the most valuable candy was…”

Alice felt tears welling up in her eyes at the memory. _Yeah_.

“Starburst,” she said. “Pink Starburst.”

Charlie shot her a smile. A knowing smirk, the kind he’d offer when their parents said something stupid and he was making fun of them, the kind he’d offer when she asked for advice and he was smug about it. That older brother smile, the one that made her think he always knew so much more than she did.

“Blue Jolly Rancher,” he said.

She snorted. “Not a chance.”

“You know I’m right.”

“I know you’re _crazy_ if you think—”

“Let’s play,” Charlie said.

Alice couldn’t help the smile that grew. She’d have to tell Quentin about this later. She’d have to thank him.

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

They didn’t have anything to bet, but it didn’t matter. They played like they had those piles of candy in front of them, pretending to bet, pretending to argue about what things were worth. Charlie _laughed._ Alice tried not to cry.

And it really felt like she had her brother back. Even if he had more bad days coming, even if it wasn’t always like _this…_

She had him back.

“You knock,” Charlie muttered, crossing his arms over his chest tightly.

“Fine. Just, like. Give me a minute,” Alice hissed back.

The door looked, somehow, larger than it ever had. More imposing. Like the house had grown in the time they’d spent away from it. Charlie knew that Alice, in truth, had more reason for her hesitance. He was the golden child returning—if anyone should be dreading this reunion, it was Alice.

Stephanie always did have a knack for blaming Alice for things, whatever mental acrobatics it required to reach that conclusion.

Alice took a breath like she was steeling herself.

“Did you call them?” Charlie asked suddenly, realizing he had no idea.

Alice scoffed. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Maybe you should’ve.”

She shot him a petulant glare and he tried not to smile.

“Yeah? And how would that conversation have gone? _Hey, remember how your son is dead? Well, great news, Stephanie,”_ Alice said, her voice tight with anxiety.

“Well, I don’t know,” Charlie replied. “Maybe she’d surprise you.”

Alice raised an eyebrow and Charlie laughed.

“Okay, like, probably not,” he conceded.

Alice rolled her eyes. And she knocked.

They waited there for a few long moments, and it felt like the world was on pause. The wind had stopped rustling through the trees, there were no birds singing, Charlie was holding his breath. He didn’t know why it felt like this—

Like he was on a precipice.

Being human was weird. Maybe it always would be. Maybe it always _had_ been. How did he still feel like a little kid when it came to his parents?

The door opened. There was a sharp gasp and the sound of glass shattering.

Stephanie was standing there, eyes wide and hands covering her mouth, her glass of wine broken on the ground.

“Hey, Mom,” Charlie said, his voice small. A smile just barely there.

Stephanie’s gaze turned quickly to Alice, like she couldn’t bear to look at Charlie. He tried not to take it personally.

“What the hell did you do?” Stephanie snapped at Alice.

Alice’s eyes widened and she seemed to shrink right then and there, like she’d eaten the wrong side of the Wonderland mushroom.

“Mom, hey, come on,” Charlie said, shifting so he was sort of between the two of them, shielding Alice from whatever ridiculous accusation Stephanie was getting ready to throw out. Alice shifted too, like she was trying to hide behind him.

“You,” Stephanie said, an accusatory finger hovering in the air. “You’re not him. You can’t be. What are you?”

“It’s me,” Charlie said quietly. “It’s—Mom, it’s _me.”_

She shook her head, taking a step back, further into the house.

“Don’t come back here,” she said. And then she slammed the door.

Charlie kind of wished they were still in that little pause after Alice had knocked.

“We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” Charlie said with a sigh. He turned, offering a smile to Alice. She looked more shaken than he was, pulling her arms around herself like she wanted to hide. “Hey, it doesn’t matter. It’s okay. We can call Dad, later. Y’know, explain.”

“I’m so sorry, Charlie,” Alice said, her voice trembling a little.

He shrugged. “One day at a time.”

She nodded.

“Hey,” he said gently, nudging her arm. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Yeah,” she said.

Charlie stared out the window of his room in the Cottage, watching the birds fly by. They’d finally gotten the issue with the school sorted—it seemed like Dean Fogg was too tired to care _why_ he was suddenly alive again and was really only mildly annoyed that it was going to involve paperwork.

But Charlie was enrolled at Brakebills again. He and Alice were actually at about the same place with classes, so it was going to work out fine.

Sort of. It was _sort of_ going to work out fine.

Stephanie still wasn’t speaking to them, unconvinced by their story, but Charlie and Alice had gotten lunch in the city with their dad. Daniel Quinn, for his part, was shaken and confused but mostly happy. He told them that Stephanie just needed some time.

Privately, Charlie didn’t care all that much whether Stephanie ever came around. Alice was all the family he’d ever really needed.

So everything was—

Okay. Everything was okay.

Except that Charlie still had days like this.

He stared out the window. At the birds. He remembered what it was like to fly, to be free like that. Free of the physical tether, free of any emotional one. Free of the confines of human magic. Free of the limitations that he’d been born with.

He didn’t miss it, not exactly. He was glad he was still human. He _wanted_ to be human.

He just wished that being human didn’t feel like this sometimes. Slow and confusing and loud.

He’d considered reaching out to his friends from before. To Emily Greenstreet. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to see them—see _her,_ in particular. They’d been friends, and he’d really cared about her, but…

He’d destroyed himself for her. How were you supposed to come back from that kind of thing?

Charlie didn’t know. Maybe he’d figure it out.

Some other time. When he wasn’t busy staring at the birds.

Charlie knew this feeling wasn’t all there was, at least. Tomorrow, he’d feel like his skin fit him again. He just had to wait through these days, too. It was all a part of being human.

Charlie took a breath.

Tomorrow would be better.

Alice couldn’t believe the quiet of her own life.

She had her girlfriend, she had her brother, she had her dad. She had classes—which she and Charlie had started, well, _actually_ going to. She and Kady and Charlie would study together in the common room of the Cottage. It was all so…

Normal. So _normal._

For a Magician, anyway.

She mused about it to Quentin once, when she and Kady had stopped by to visit him—

 _Do you ever feel like the other shoe is going to drop?_ she’d asked him. _Like this can’t possibly be the end of it, right?_

Quentin had smiled, a distant one. _Kinda,_ he’d admitted. _I keep waiting for the next catastrophe._

 _But it isn’t coming,_ Alice had said, a little caught up in the truth of it. _This is real. Right? The peace is real._

 _As real as the catastrophe was,_ Quentin had replied.

Alice kept thinking about that. This quiet, this peace that her life had settled into, it was _real._ If anything, it was more real than the disaster, more real than the quest. Someday, she wondered if she’d tell the story of her epic quest to her children, to her and _Kady’s_ children, and she wondered if they’d believe it.

Maybe they’d laugh, like kids do, look at each other like she and Charlie did when their parents said something dumb, and maybe they’d think, _No way our moms could’ve done all that. No way they went to school with the rulers of Fillory. No way Uncle Charlie was ever a niffin._

One night, studying in the common room with Charlie and Kady, Alice looked up. Saw them both hunched over the same textbook. And she paused in that moment, committing it to memory. The way Kady pulled her hair back into a ponytail as she read. The way Charlie scribbled notes illegibly. The way the sky looked through the window.

Kady glanced up, meeting Alice’s eyes quickly. And she smiled.

The quiet of it all was as perfect as life ever could be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! You can find me on tumblr at, official-mermaid, if you'd like


End file.
